I don’t write to be famous, I don’t write to be known, I write because I am and I want to be read. How sad to fill a room with paintings no one sees or play music no one hears. Writing is talking without sound, singing without score and dancing without movement and yet, it is all of them. It is a solitary art conjured from thought and expressed by the need to communicate.

HEAD SLAPS, SPEED BUMPS and LIGHTBULBS, one woman's WTF, oops and ah-ha moments of life.

They were published once, and as every writer knows, once is not enough.

My grand-dogger: Potty training vs. paper training

Just the other day I saw something that at first seemed amusing,
then disturbing, and to my friend Emily, (I’ve changed her name), it
looked down-right practical; a stroller for pets. If you’re out for a
brisk three mile walk and you want to take along your petite pooch, with
legs the size of toothpicks, a pet-stroller might be in order. A dog
house on wheels gets your Taco Bell Chihuahua inside the restaurant but
if he speaks you’re out the door. Management is not kind to children who
bark.

Emily thought the stroller brilliant because to her there
is no difference between rearing a child and raising a pet. To me, potty
training and paper training are two different things.

When my
daughter Becky was a baby, I mentioned how cute she was spitting out her
first mouth-full of Gerber’s Oatmeal; Emily was heartbroken when she
had to switch from puppy-chow to dog-chow. I was offended; they were two
different species for goodness sake. How could anyone love a dog as
much as a baby?

When I had my second child, Rachel, Emily bought
another puppy and a cat. Our house was full of babbling babies, bottles
and Weebles; Emily’s was wall-to-wall newspapers, a litter-box, yips and
hisses.

Once my daughters became old enough to play with the
dogs, and by then two cats, the comparison of rug-rats vs. ankle-biters
ceased. The whole, talking and treating a pet like a child issue sort of
left my psyche until my now grown daughter’s fiancé proposed,
presenting her with a beautiful diamond ring and the cutest little
miniature-dachshund on the face of the earth. I proudly proclaim that
until the wonderful title of grandmother is bestowed upon me I have
Hitch.

I call him my grand-dogger.

At work when pictures
of grandchildren are passed around by proud grandparents it takes every
bit of restraint I have to not blurt out how cute Hitch looks fetching
and carrying a full sized Frisbee, or how sweet he is curled up in my
lap, or how big he has gotten; all 8 pounds of wiener-dog adorable
energy. When my boss expounds on the intelligence of her beautiful
granddaughters or shows me the latest matching outfits she has bought
them, I can’t resist sharing my latest Hitch purchase; the little green
dish with tiny dog bones on it, and a natural-fleece lined zebra-print
raincoat, with a hood. I must admit there is something about a
natural-fleece lined animal-print article of clothing for a dog that
seems so wrong, but it’s cute, how could I resist.

Yes, I have
become one of those nauseating people who talks about a dog like it is a
child. When my husband and I watch Hitch, I call it babysitting. When I
hold him, I sway back and forth and pat him, like I gently patted my
babies.

My husband, who thinks the only good dog is a big dog,
and ours weighs over 100 pounds, speaks to Hitch like he’s a toddler. To
him, every other small dog is defined as a yipping little tangle of
dog-hair at the end of a mop handle, but not Hitch.

“The little guy had personality,” he says, and I must say, I do agree.

So
until, and if, my daughters have actual children I will be one of those
obnoxious people who follow every one of your cute grandchildren
stories with one about my grand-dogger. Did I tell you I went back to
that store to see if they have any of those strollers left? No, well
okay then, enough said.

Times Two

My column 'Enough Said' is in 8 ‘Times’ newspapers, a division of The Day in New London, Connecticut. I weekly pitch myself as the writing love-child of Andy Rooney and Erma Bombeck. Not as acerbic as Andy and a bit more modern than Erma, I admire them as winking-paragons of realistic observation. Enoughsaidcolumn.blogspot.com is my tilt on things. Carolynnwith2Ns is my tilt on everything else. Email me at Cpianta@comcast.net
or CP.enoughsaid@aol.com